Falbrav waved a fond farewell to British racing in spectacular style with an emphatic victory in the Juddmonte International Stakes at York yesterday.

And as well as taking the winner's prize of #266,800, he landed the British Horseracing Board's Middle Distance Championship to give his owners the additional bonus of a cool #250,000.

The result was never in doubt once Darryll Holland had pressed the button on Luca Cumani's five-year-old.

As expected, the early pace in the 10-furlong event was cut out by Izdiham, pacemaker to last year's winner Nayef, who was Falbrav's only rival for the bonus prize.

Nayef held second place until the straight but was stalked throughout by the eventual winner and when Marcus Tregoning's charge went for home, Holland brought Falbrav through to launch his winning run.

Suddenly the 5-2 second favourite had spreadeagled his field and in a matter of seconds the race was over, with the winner going on to record a two-length success over the fast-finishing Magistretti, with Nayef a further one and three-quarter lengths back in third.

"This horse is an amazing machine. In fact he's one of the very best I've trained," said Cumani, who was landing his third International.

"He never lets you down. He's a complete professional. He's always calm and relaxed. He knows how strong he is, he knows how good he is, and he fears nobody.

"His personality is so fantastic. He has full consciousness of the good horse he is, and the power that he is and the professional he is.

"He never turns a hair, he never puts in a bad gallop, and always does what you want him to do."

The Bedford House trainer confirmed the pre-race tactics had been to track his championship rival.

"Yes, that was the plan," he said. "We thought Nayef would follow the pacemaker. There was no other obvious candidate to follow the pace.

"Nayef is more of a galloper so we thought he'd kick on early in the straight. We said follow him and we then left it to Darryll.

"He went just before the two marker, but it gave me palpitations because when you see a horse so far out in front in a race like this you spend the rest of the last two furlongs looking round to see if there's anything coming up to catch him.

"But with this horse it would take a very special horse to come from behind and catch him once he gets going."

The trainer, who numbers two Derbys, a Breeders' Cup and the Arlington Million among the many prizes he has captured worldwide, was asked how he placed Falbrav in the pecking order of his stable stars.

"He is up there," he confirmed. "It's not just today.

"This is his third Group One win this season. He won the Ispahan in convincing fashion beating a very good filly; he won the Eclipse when everybody thought he might have been a bit lucky; he showed today that it wasn't luck, that it was pure ability."